My Newly Acquired 2013 Demon

I played with it for the first time on Sunday, December 30th, at an All Star Paintball, an indoor paintball spot in N.J. cause I'm not crazy enough to play outdoors in the 30 degree Weather.

This is a 2013 Demon not a converted 2012. It is Sprung and QEV-less.

Out of the box it Chrono'd at 225 +/- 12fps and made a weird Sqeaking noise which I thought was normal. Before heading out to play I pulled out the Engine and found that the bolt did not Spring back and forth as smoothly as my Ex-Luxe so I re-lubed all the orings. After re-lubing I found that I still had some resistance when pushing the sprung bolt back and forth. The Dwell was at 12ms and read somewhere that it should be between 14 and 16 so I set it at 14.5. It took me a second to realize that the pressure adjustments are reversed on the HP Reg (Out is Higher, In is Lower). After all is done I was shooting 270 +/- 8fps. not bad for a fresh out of the box Marker.

After fiddling with the settings I found that the Pre-Set PSP is not like the Pre-Set PSP that I'm used to in Tadao or Virtue so I had to set my own Ramping to PSP Rules. There are also no Profiles to Store Different Settings for different Tournaments and Game Plays. Yes I know your can set it at the beginning of the Day or the night before Blah Blah Blah.

It shot pretty quiet and really smooth I had to turn my sensitivity up on my Spire so it could pick up the gun motion when I shot. The shots were pretty flat but I noticed that I was only getting 6 Pods and a Hopper of a 4000 fill. That's not as many as the 10+ in the You Tube Video or as close to the 11 out of my Vapor. I found the Trajectory to be flat and Pretty consistent. I ran 2 Cases through it with only 2 Ball breaks, 1 in the Barrel and the other was in the breech possibly from a already broken ball.

When I got home I did a full break down to see where the lube was needed and oring wear. I found the Fit and Finish of the Outer Engine was pretty coarse with a lot of sharp edges. A little elbow grease and a 1000grit sandpaper and some water went a long way to remove the sharp edges. But what about it leaking?? well if you think about it the orings need to seal between the body and the inner channel grooves (where the orings rest) of the engine so no harm was being done to the Engine. I also polished to a mirror shine where the Shuttle Ring rides with a polishing paste and not with the sand paper and that got rid of my Squeak. The finish on the bolt was a bit rough as well but the metal looked stressed almost as if it were rolled into a bolt and not extruded or milled from a pipe. Polishing it with Simichrome Polishing Paste did not take as well as the Engine part were the shuttle ring rides and I did not dare use any kind of sand paper on it for fear of fitment issues, so I left it as is. BTW all polishing I did was by hand no machines or Drills etc...After putting the bolt and Engine together I found less resistance when pressing the sprung bolt in and out. That being said I put it back together and decided to chrono with no adjustments to the HPR or the Dwell settings and got 290+/- 5fps.

Stock Barrel did not get used since the Marbs I was using were rolling out of a .680 Barrel so I used my Lurker .678 Barrel which performed admirably. I'm not too fond of the trigger with the sharp edges and what feels like to me as "No Human To Machine Interface". Which is fine for PSP but in Semi it flat out sucks. The Board is pretty easy and straight forward. If you ever owned an Angel A1 then this should be easy since what I believe is that the same company made them both.

This Demon, with some work, can be as smooth as my Vapor and Smoother than my Luxe, but will never replace my Ripper (yes I know the ripper is a poppit). I'm a new Fan.

Acid customs makes a fantastic trigger for the demon, a few people I know including myself are using them. A+ product

I personally haven't heard of someone having these problems yet out of the box. The efficiency is way off on yours, are team did one of the efficiency tests on youtube and we got 7 pods off a 2800 fill, brand new out of the box 2013. Also I think I've broken 2 balls thru my demon in 30k shots, the bolt is so gentle that it VERY rarely breaks paint ever. I'd say you should talk to someone at vanguard.

I shaved down the edges and that helps a ton. I'm going to work with John to see if he can adjust a trigger to my Specs and see if my theory is sound

Quote:

Originally Posted by cocker addict

Acid customs makes a fantastic trigger for the demon, a few people I know including myself are using them. A+ product...

I know John really well. When Techna went out John filled the gap for me on Numerous markers. I'm already looking into the Demon trigger with him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cocker addict

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I personally haven't heard of someone having these problems yet out of the box. The efficiency is way off on yours, are team did one of the efficiency tests on youtube and we got 7 pods off a 2800 fill, brand new out of the box 2013. Also I think I've broken 2 balls thru my demon in 30k shots, the bolt is so gentle that it VERY rarely breaks paint ever. I'd say you should talk to someone at vanguard.

I'm not complaining, I like the way it shoots. I'm just not sure what's up with the efficiency. As for the Ball Breaks I'm chaulking that up to really cold INDOOR weather 45/50 degrees and using Marballizers.

it could be the hopper. i use prophecies and i figured out that the hopper was to hard for the paint so i took all the outside magnet on the cone and just left 3 in there. it stop breaking paint tremendously but i still sometimes break paint but not too often nas it use to.

Yip....turning your hopper up makes the feed more consistent, but also puts too much stress on the ball stack. One of the reasons I never use sound activated hoppers...they're just too much of a pain.

Polishing your internals may make it run smoother, but it will also cause the lube to shoot out much faster. Probably fine since it sounds like you keep up on your maintenance either way.

As far as efficieny, I think you may have an oring size issue somewhere. Or the spring is not seating right. Who knows. You may not need a dwell so high on a 2013....who knows.

What i love about rhe prophecy is the adjustability of the hopper and the capacity it can hold. Not many people know or at least have use the full potential of the loader. You can mechanically adjust the loaders tensions and sensitivity to paint. I can also do this electronically and make sure that you get the most consistent loading while shooting the most fragile paint without jamming. The only downfall of this loader is the weak design of its feedneck, even with the v2 parts.

it could be the hopper. i use prophecies and i figured out that the hopper was to hard for the paint so i took all the outside magnet on the cone and just left 3 in there. it stop breaking paint tremendously but i still sometimes break paint but not too often nas it use to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MstrKey

Yip....turning your hopper up makes the feed more consistent, but also puts too much stress on the ball stack. One of the reasons I never use sound activated hoppers...they're just too much of a pain.

Polishing your internals may make it run smoother, but it will also cause the lube to shoot out much faster. Probably fine since it sounds like you keep up on your maintenance either way.

As far as efficieny, I think you may have an oring size issue somewhere. Or the spring is not seating right. Who knows. You may not need a dwell so high on a 2013....who knows.

The Spire is not Sound Activated. It detects the vibration of the shot and feeds.

When I turned up the sensitivity it was because the Demon shot really smooth with little vibration to detect, so I bumped up the sensitivity of the Spire to detect the shot.

The Spire is easier on paint than the Rotor. The broken paint was most likely my fault. I have the new SF lid on the spire and I had gotten used to slamming pods into the Spire with the older Speed Feed and with the Modified KM Speed Feed. The New SF Speed Feed does not require any force to empty the pod into the hopper and I probably slammed the pod a bit too hard into the Speed Feed.

As for my Maintenance Habits on a Marker. I'm known to be harsh on my Markers but I always maintain the Engines and the Regs to any marker I've owned. Ask anyone who has ever bought a Marker from me. My Markers always perform beyond expectation.

Thanks for the info. When I get the Demon back from Anno I'll do an oring fitment test to see where I can improve.

Well it's less about how and more about when. It looks to me in the video that the spire rotates quite a bit on a single shot. More than would be needed for a single ball(great for out of the gate bursts but not for one balling). Now I don't know how much tension that actually puts on the stack but if you load it with paint.....cycle it a bit and then take the hopper off and push up on the ball stack you'll find out. You should be able to push the ball stack back up into the feed neck a decent amount. A quarter of a ball maybe?. That's the amount of space(I'm guessing) the ball stack needs to recoil from the bolt in order to prevent a cracked ball. With nice warm paint this margin widens......with cold brittle paint this margin narrows. So......I don't know if it's too hard, too soft, or just right. I don't have a spire to test. I would assume Empire did and it probably works fine.

Most likely you're right. If you were to load too fast I could see you cracking balls on the spire itself. Then they could blow up when fired. Only more time playing will solve the issue. If it occurs again you could try another hopper or something just to see what happens. Maybe test your detents with your finger nail to see if they are retracting 100% because those little springs inside can slip out and cause problems. Could be ball roll back......not sure whey they haven't come out with a proper non roll back rubber tip yet. Who knows.

Well it's less about how and more about when. It looks to me in the video that the spire rotates quite a bit on a single shot. More than would be needed for a single ball(great for out of the gate bursts but not for one balling). Now I don't know how much tension that actually puts on the stack but if you load it with paint.....cycle it a bit and then take the hopper off and push up on the ball stack you'll find out. You should be able to push the ball stack back up into the feed neck a decent amount. A quarter of a ball maybe?. That's the amount of space(I'm guessing) the ball stack needs to recoil from the bolt in order to prevent a cracked ball. With nice warm paint this margin widens......with cold brittle paint this margin narrows. So......I don't know if it's too hard, too soft, or just right. I don't have a spire to test. I would assume Empire did and it probably works fine.

Most likely you're right. If you were to load too fast I could see you cracking balls on the spire itself. Then they could blow up when fired. Only more time playing will solve the issue. If it occurs again you could try another hopper or something just to see what happens. Maybe test your detents with your finger nail to see if they are retracting 100% because those little springs inside can slip out and cause problems. Could be ball roll back......not sure whey they haven't come out with a proper non roll back rubber tip yet. Who knows.

The fingers in the spire are pretty soft I have another video showing how it will pop the ball out of the way if it can't push it down the raceway.

I did check the detents they are pretty normal, meaning that they have enough tension to hold a ball in position but subtle enough to recess to allow the ball to be fired.

It would be nice if they made either a soft face or a flat face to keep the roll back to a minimum. I'm sure that some one will release such a bolt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by specopsdeath2

HA! so that was you with the All black demon? I was the guy with the luxe talking to you/asking you to show it to a good friend of mine

yea the paint wasnt the best/stored all too well, i know a lot of people who broke 1-3 balls that day.

Yes Sir that was me. If your friend is on the fence about getting one tell him to do it. It shot so good I did not pick up my Ripper and the guy I was with was using my Ripper all day. I'll even do the quick polish to the Shuttle Ring

to me rounding the trigger is not the issue, it more like the lack of trigger itself. its too short to have a good flow to strokes. the trigger is good enough for PSP but not for NPPL. the frame for its size that looks big do actually feels small because the way the trigger is shaped out of the frame. i have small hands and short fingers but still i couldn't get a good flow unlike my DP G3 SpecR. also the way the screw locks in the bearing bothers me, you have to torque it like you sweet spotting its flow or else it can cause the trigger to be sluggished and too loose would have a good amount of side to side play.